How to Paint a Cat (Cats and Curios Mystery) Read Free Page A

The following morning, a line of bold black print ran across the top of the newspaper’s front page:
SUPS SHOCK THE CITY—
PREPARE FOR MONTY-GEDDON!
    • • •
    TO BE FAIR, in the days leading up to the vote, the city’s cadre of esteemed reporters had been distracted by a competing storyline, one far more compelling than the mundane selection of an interim mayor.
    Like everyone else in the Bay Area, the media had been fixated on the theft of Clive, San Francisco’s celebrity albino alligator.
    Less than a week before the supervisors’ historic meeting, the prized gator had been stolen from the aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences, an esteemed science museum in Golden Gate Park. Nefarious persons, as yet unknown, had removed Clive from his Swamp Exhibit in the middle of the night, leaving behind only a trail of dehydrated fish biscuits, the gator’s favorite snack, which had been used to lure him from his enclosure.
    With no leads or letters for ransom, the situation seemed dire. Just when authorities began to fear that Clive had been chopped into albino-themed sushi and his rare hide tooled for designer leather handbags, the police received a tip. The alligator had been sighted in an unusual location—among the shoppers at San Francisco’s Union Square.
    Clive was soon making appearances at random spots across the city: strolling along the sidewalk outside the South of Market ballpark, ambling among the buskers at Fisherman’s Wharf, and lounging on the bench seat of a Powell Street cable car.
    There was something odd about the rogue alligator’s wanderings, other than the crowded places he chose to pop up. In addition to his apparent fondness for sightseeing, the renegade swamp creature began accessorizing his scaly white body with an assortment of scarves, hats, and false beards. The costumes grew more elaborate at each stop.
    With the public captivated by the alligator’s shenanigans, the city’s news professionals found themselves in a heated competition to provide the best and most recent footage. As reporters ran themselves ragged trying to keep up with the elusive Clive, the comparatively mundane developments at City Hall fell by the wayside.
    The alligator prank eventually culminated in Clive’s discovery at Mountain Lake, a small body of water on the south side of the Presidio. Other than yearning for his heated rock at the aquarium’s Swamp Exhibit, Clive was unharmed and in good spirits. He was found a mere forty-five minutes after the completion of the board of supervisors’ marathon mayoral selection meeting.
    The coincidence of the two seemingly unrelated events—Monty’s appointment and Clive’s recapture—prompted numerous conspiracy theories.
    Some thought the alligator chase might have been a ruse designed to divert attention away from the supervisors’ scurrilous behind-the-scenes negotiations. Or maybe the supervisors had been blackmailed into making their Monty decision, with Clive being held as alligator ransom to ensure their compliance.
    Rumors that the interim mayor himself was complicit in an alligator-related plot began to circulate—speculations that were fueled by the publication of a cell phone video showing soon-to-be Mayor Carmichael in a wet suit and snorkel mask tromping through the reeds of Mountain Lake, tossing his flippers into the air as he fled the gator’s glowing white jaws.
    • • •
    THE NIECE EASED herself forward in the leather recliner, causing the worn seat cushions to creak.
    She had her own theories about the mysteries surrounding Monty’s improbable mayoral endorsement, but she kept them to herself. As for his involvement in the alligator antics, that much was a given. Monty had driven the niece and her two cats to Mountain Lake to assist him in the operation. She had witnessed the snorkel incident firsthand—although in the commotion surrounding Monty’s near alligator-annihilation, she’d failed to notice the hidden observer who had